A superintendent in the Thames River Police, William Monk
is on a patrol boat near Waterloo Bridge when he and his
men notice a young couple standing at the bridge railing,
apparently engaged in an intense discussion. The woman
waves her arms and places her hands on the man's shoulders.
A caress or a push? He grasps hold of her. To save her or
to kill her? Seconds later, the pair plunges to death in
the icy waters. Monk can't help but wonder, has he
witnessed an accident, a suicide, or a murder? It seems
impossible to determine the truth but, haunted by the
woman's somber beauty, he is impelled to try.
Mary Havilland is her name and until recently she and Toby
Argyll, the fair-haired man who shared her fate, had
planned to marry. Her father, an engineer employed by the
Argyll Company, has also recently died - a suicide
according to the police and Mary's sister. But friends tell
Monk that Mary suspected her father had been murdered
because of his stubborn insistence that the Argyll
Company's current project - participation in the
construction of a splendid new sewer system for the
metropolis - is so badly flawed that the entire city may be
in dire peril from flood and fire.
Already struggling to win the respect of his men, Monk is
faced with two urgent mysteries. With his intrepid wife,
Hester, he is soon treading a slippery path - from
luxurious drawing rooms where powerful men hatch their
unscrupulous plots to a world beneath the city where poor
folk fight starvation. In nightmarish tunnels, Monk and
Hester find true friends, among them Scuff, a young
mudlark; Sutton, the ratcatcher, and Snoot, Sutton's clever
terrier. For once, even Monk's old enemy,
SuperintendentRuncorn, is on his side. But as rainfall
strains the fragile manmade underground, a murderer remains
free - and poised to strike again.
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